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June 4, 2004 - June 20, 2004
Cast of Characters:
Me-Denise (34)-Disney Nut
DH-Steve (37)-Disney Nut's DH (who does Disney to make DW happy, but secretly loves it too!)
DS-Nathan (9)-the reserved/cautious one - Disney Nut in training
DS-Ryan (7)-the daredevil - Disney Nut in training
The last time we were at Disney World was Thanksgiving 2002. We drove from PA (near Pittsburgh) and took our 30-foot camper to Fort Wilderness for a week. With the drive to and from, we felt we didn't have enough time. We started discussing the idea of going for 2 weeks. Neither of us had ever taken off 2 weeks from work. The company where I work filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy last summer. I work in the finance department and needless to say, things have been very stressful lately. All of this helped make our decision. Steve and I both got permission from work for the 2-week vacation.
We waited for the school calendar to come out in September. The last day of school was supposed to be June 2nd. We decided to leave Friday the 4th. A few quick e-mails to Laurie at TMFL and we were booked for June 5-19th. Our plan was set, or so we thought.
Winter in PA was especially snowy this year and the kids missed so many days of school that they extended the school year to June 8th. The boys would either have to miss the last 2 days of school or we would have to postpone our trip. I was not very excited about changing our dates, so we decided to get the boys excused for the last days. (It turns out that those were the only days Nathan was absent this year. Ryan had only missed 1.) Their teachers were great about everything. Ryan's teacher even called me at home to tell me not to worry about anything and have a great vacation.
I started making plans with a few things scheduled. Steve doesn't like it when everything is planned, so I made a few PS for things I definitely wanted to try and we would do other things as we felt like it.
Days 1 and 2 (June 4 and 5)
The boys had baseball games the night we were scheduled to leave. We were originally intending to skip the games and just leave right after work. A few weeks ago, Steve decided that we would stay for the game and leave after (that would be determined later to be a bad decision). He is a coach and was feeling guilty leaving the Manager without a helper for 2 weeks. Anyway, the day went extremely well at work. I actually got the chance to leave 1 hour early at 4:00. I picked up the boys at my mom's and went home to get the last minute things ready and get them dressed for their games. Steve had gotten home early also and already had the camper connected and the golf cart and bikes packed.
We went to the games. Ryan's game was over extremely early. That was not to be our fate with Nathan's. In his league, the kids pitch to each other. Let's just say, pitching is not our team's strong suit. So for 6 LONG innings, we pitched (can you say walked?) to 10 batters on the other team. Needless to say, they lost, but they put in a good effort. It was now 8:30.
We went home, changed the boys out of their uniform, made a pot of coffee and we were on our way at exactly 9:00 pm.
I was a pretty uneventful trip, except for the rainstorms in WV. Steve eventually decided to stop at the NC welcome center at 4:30 am. We stayed there and slept in the camper until we left again at 7:00. This welcome center is very nice, with a separate area for campers away from the trucks-very quiet.
We were on our way again (no rain this time) and things were going well until we hit GA. Steve was just getting entirely too tired. We decided to stop and let him nap for a while. We stopped at the GA welcome center and he napped while I took the boys for a walk. They ended up running races around all of the concrete paths. That was fine with me; they had been cooped up in the truck for so long.
With Steve feeling a little better, on we pressed (it is now 2:00pm). The rest of the trip seemed really long, but we eventually arrived at Fort Wilderness at 7:15 pm (the exact time the GPS said we would when we left GA!). As we were waiting to check in, we watched the staff change the flag to fly half mast (we later learned that President Reagan had died.) We checked in and set up on a great site (531). A little dinner and showers and off to bed, for a much needed rest.
Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
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